Need to purchase discounted Walt Disney World merchandise for 50-80% off? Disney’s Character Warehouse clearance facilities on the Orlando Premium Retailers promote genuine gadgets from Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and so on. at deep reductions. This information supply ideas & methods for buying at these shops. Plus, pitfalls to keep away from so that you don’t spend ceaselessly ready in line and squandering precious trip time. (Up to date July 24, 2023.)
There are two of those shops: one on Worldwide Drive (4951 Worldwide Drive Suite 95, Orlando, FL 32819) and one on Vineland (8200 Vineland Avenue Suite 1252, Orlando, FL 32821). The Vineland location is nearer to Walt Disney World, whereas the I-Drive location is nearer to Common Orlando Resort. Additionally value noting is that the Vineland one expenses $10 for its storage, so parking within the free lot is now much more chaotic/troublesome.
Typically talking, the I-Drive shops are nicer, and we’ve had higher success discover good Walt Disney World merchandise at that location. Nonetheless, that’s largely luck of the draw. Each shops get new shipments nearly every day, and people include lots of the identical issues, plus whole oddball gadgets.
Fewer Walt Disney World friends go to the I-Drive location, so it being much less standard and, by extension, much less picked over. When you’re doing different outlet buying, we’d suggest trying over the lists of shops to see which outlet will attraction to you.
Basically, be suggested that each of those outlet malls are extremely standard. As Central Florida’s inhabitants grows, Orlando tourism numbers steadily climb, and outlet buying turns into more and more standard with worldwide guests, you’ll discover giant crowds at each outlet malls just about on a regular basis. There are regularly traces to get in quite a lot of shops, together with/particularly luxurious and excessive finish style manufacturers.
Disney Character Warehouse is just not resistant to this pattern. In reality, it’s most likely the worst instance of a protracted line at any retailer at both outlet mall advanced. Attributable to a proliferation of eBay pirates scouring the shops for bargains to resell at an excessive markup and elevated consciousness due to social media, YouTube, and blogs like this, Disney Character Warehouse has gotten an increasing number of standard over time.
Because of the line getting so lengthy that it was actually blocking entrances to close by shops, Disney Character Warehouse now frequently makes use of a digital queue. Upon arriving, you enter a queue to examine in with a Forged Member. The Forged Member takes your full title and cellphone quantity. The system sends you a complete of two messages: a take a look at textual content that they ask you to verify you acquired earlier than you allow them. Then, one other message when it’s time to return.
No wait time is given or posted by way of the digital queue system, however you’ll be able to ask Forged Members for a ballpark estimate. On our most up-to-date visits to the Orlando Premium Retailers, the wait has ranged from a couple of minutes to some hours. When you’re referred to as again to the shop, you would possibly be capable to enter instantly, otherwise you would possibly then wait in a (standby) return line. All of it relies upon upon the gang ranges and time of day you go to. Disney Character Warehouse makes use of a one-in, one-out coverage and so they attempt to hold the shop at or near capability.
Though the mechanics are totally different (e.g. no My Disney Expertise app), this digital queue is fairly similar to these for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle Run. Proper all the way down to the shortest wait sometimes being on the finish of the evening, presumably as a result of the resellers present up very first thing to select over the brand new arrivals, and since the Orlando shops sometimes aren’t as busy on the finish of the evening.
We discovered this the arduous means from firsthand expertise. The morning was once our go-to time for visiting Disney Character Warehouse, as hitting the shops early is the simplest method to discover parking. That half remains to be true. The general crowd ranges on the shops are lowest and parking is best very first thing within the morning.
Nonetheless, the traces may be unhealthy for Disney Character Warehouse even then. To make issues worse, the morning demo skews closely in direction of eBay pirates. We can’t understate simply how disagreeable of an expertise it’s to buy with them. These eBayers are aggressive, impolite, and entitled–racing round grabbing up as a lot merchandise as they’ll, as rapidly as potential.
(Earlier than you ask, Disney not solely has no drawback with this, however they implicitly encourage the eBay pirates. Disney simply needs to filter the unsold stock ASAP, and pirates “assist” in that purpose. So no less than as of proper now, it’s extremely unlikely that Disney will do something to truly discourage eBay pirates. The few buy restrict insurance policies Disney Character Warehouse does have don’t actually do a lot.)
Fortunately, the pirates retreat to different ports of name at evening–like Arrrrby’s. On account of this, we’ve discovered that weeknight evenings are the very best time to go to the shops.
Parking may be more durable than very first thing within the morning, however crowds are all the time decrease than noon and normally higher than very first thing within the morning. On high of that, the expertise is extra nice as soon as the solar goes down.
Positive, the cabinets at Disney Character Warehouse can be a bit extra picked over, however a lot of that is private desire and luck, anyway. Some stuff sits round for months, different gadgets promote out inside hours. We are likely to favor area of interest, retro and uncommon character gadgets, and the pirates don’t normally trouble with that as a lot as they do different gadgets.
Truthfully, although, our major answer has simply been not going to Disney Character Warehouse. It has merely grow to be an excessive amount of of a wild card, with annoyance after annoyance–eBay pirates, lengthy traces, crowded shops, picked over cabinets–and there’s no great way of avoiding all of that.
It bought to the purpose the place doing the Disney Character Warehouse largely stopped being definitely worth the effort and headache. We walked away fully empty-handed on an increasing number of visits, and easily misplaced that deal-hunting want. We nonetheless drop-in every now and then within the evenings, however far much less regularly than earlier than–round 2-3 occasions per yr as an alternative of each different week on the best way to Dealer Joe’s.
This isn’t to discourage you from visiting, as your first expertise at Disney Character Warehouse might nonetheless be enjoyable and thrilling. Fairly, it’s to set real looking expectations. Loads of vlogs and blogs present the loopy offers that may be discovered at Disney Character Warehouse, however few element the hassles and complications–or the opportunity of hanging out fully. If in case you have restricted trip time and a packed schedule, you would possibly wish to reduce the journey to Disney Character Warehouse.
On a constructive word, Disney Character Warehouse doesn’t have the identical difficulty as different “manufacturing facility shops” that really promote lower-quality gadgets which might be made particularly for the shops. This has grow to be a standard observe within the final decade, and the FTC has began cracking down on outlet pricing and advertising and marketing practices.
As extra outlet shops have been constructed, it’s merely not potential for all of them to hold overstock or past-season gadgets. As an alternative, they’ve adopted the lower-quality manufacturing facility retailer technique to supply illusory reductions. In actuality, you’re paying much less, however you’re paying much less for decrease high quality. We share this right here as a result of many individuals could also be unfamiliar with this paradigm shift at shops, and as a weblog closely centered on saving cash and getting offers, we expect it’s pertinent.
In any case, Disney Character Warehouse is not an instance of the outlets-as-factory-stores mannequin. This truly is overstock and past-season merchandise from Walt Disney World.
Disney Parks (not DisneyStore) operates these places as liquidation shops for Disney Parks & Resorts merchandise–from Aulani to Walt Disney World to Disney Cruise Line to Disneyland–it’s all shipped to Florida, the place you will discover an unlimited array of Disney Parks gadgets on the Character Warehouse places.
There are some things we wish to stress about Disney’s Character Warehouse. Reductions are very hit and miss, and markdowns are far and wide. Typically, it looks like there’s zero logic to the markdowns.
You would possibly spot a shelf of Disney Cruise Line Alaska t-shirt from two years in the past that’s marked down by solely $5. (That’s an actual instance!)
Stock can also be very luck-based. Simply since you see one thing on Fb or YouTube doesn’t imply it’ll be there a couple of weeks, days, and even hours later.
Talking of this instance, you would possibly see somebody publish a photograph of a bunch of purses in the future on social media, so that you resolve to go to the outlet to avoid wasting cash, solely to search out them bought out. The subsequent day, you see one other picture of these things again in inventory, so you come the next day proper once they open. Gone once more. This has occurred to us earlier than!
There are a couple of sorts of merchandise which might be notably standard at Disney Character Warehouse. First, Dooney & Bourke and Loungefly luggage plus different high-cost “fashionable” gadgets, which are sometimes round half-off their in-park costs.
These have been the mainstay merchandise at Disney Character Warehouse for a number of years, to the purpose that you simply’d suppose that Walt Disney World would merely order fewer of those purses and luggage. Our sneaking suspicion is that the markup on these merchandise is so excessive that Disney remains to be making a hefty revenue even at half-off, so capturing the full-price in-park gross sales and the outlet mall cut price hunters is definitely savvy technique. (Severely, it looks like each Dooney & Bourke and Loungefly bag finally ends up on the shops.)
Second, overstock gadgets which might be nonetheless being bought within the parks. Stuff like Delight Ears throughout June, Minnie Mouse headbands, hats, and different random gadgets.
It’s most likely an analogous concept right here–Walt Disney World would relatively have an excessive amount of than too few of those merchandise, and in the event that they miss the mark with projecting reputation, the excess is shipped to the shops.
Third, area of interest and retro merchandise.
That is the candy spot for us. Characters which might be massively standard with followers–like Figment, Orange Chook or Massive Al–can promote nicely within the parks at first, however as soon as the WDW diehards have all stocked up, these area of interest characters would sit on cabinets. Ditto old style EPCOT Middle designs, anniversary merchandise, and different retro-inspired merchandise. A number of stuff from the retro traces of Walt Disney World’s fiftieth Anniversary and EPCOT’s fortieth can now be discovered at Disney Character Warehouse.
The ultimate and most typical sort of merchandise is past-season merchandise. For instance, you’ll see stacks of calendars for over 75% off in January.
If it’s November, you’ll see lots of Halloween. In January, you’ll be able to anticipate finding a ton of Christmas stuff. No matter Epcot Pageant most-recently ended you’ll discover within the shops. Character stuff from no matter Marvel or Star Wars film got here out and left theaters can be there.
In the meantime, you’ll pay Disney’s Character Warehouse a return go to after a number of months away, and see cruise-specific DCL shirts that had been in inventory the final time you had been there. (I swear a number of the Disney Cruise Line stuff has been on the cabinets for nearly a yr.)
As for what you’ll be able to anticipate finding, it actually varies. Essentially the most consistently-predictable varieties of merchandise are seasonal gadgets and gadgets bought as promotional tie-ins to motion pictures.
When you’ve visited the shops sufficient, you begin to get a really feel for the kind of merchandise that’ll make its means there, and you may play a sport within the Walt Disney World parks, guessing which gadgets are outlet-bound.
With these factors made, one factor you would possibly think about doing is perusing Derek Burgan’s “The Magic, The Reminiscences, and Merch!” Outlet Studies, that are “humorous” recaps of merchandise he and his crack crew of investigative journalists discover at these shops. This collection has been discontinued for the very same causes we’ve stopped visiting Disney Character Warehouse with regularity, but it surely’ll nonetheless provide you with a tough concept of the varieties of merchandise bought on the shops.
General, there’s rather a lot to like and rather a lot to detest in regards to the Disney’s Character Warehouse outlet shops. With a cease right here in the beginning of your Walt Disney World trip, you possibly can probably save tons of of {dollars} and get your merchandise “repair” early.
Then again, you possibly can strike out solely, losing a ton of time in line, battling eBay buccaneers, and seeing solely junk that nobody with eyes would ever think about buying. These outlet shops are a ‘feast or famine’ sort of factor, and whereas we generally have success with them as frugal consumers, they positively don’t promote the best hits of Walt Disney World merchandise.
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Your Ideas
Have you ever ever gone to the Disney Character Warehouse Retailers? What have your experiences been with eBayers, traces, digital queue wait occasions, or memento choice on the shops? Discover something good, or did you suppose it was a waste of time? Any questions we may also help you reply? Listening to suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!